Dear friends,
The title of this meditation is Open your eyes to beauty.
So you might think it strange that my first instruction to you is to close your eyes.
But yes,
Please close your eyes,
Relax and allow yourself to come into this wonderful present moment.
Make sure you're sitting comfortably,
With your back reasonably straight,
What you might call an alert posture,
But not stiff or rigid.
And for a few moments now,
Simply pay attention to your body.
Do you notice any sign of tension?
If so,
Just see if you can consciously relax the tension wherever it may be.
One possible example,
Your shoulders.
Notice your shoulders,
Are they tight and crunched up?
If so,
Just let them drop.
Relax,
Drop the shoulders and see if you can let any concerns or worries drop with them.
Notice the difference as you release the tension.
Notice how you feel more relaxed with the shoulders dropped.
In this meditation you are invited to open your eyes to beauty.
So it might be appropriate to begin by quoting some words from an old hymn,
For the Beauty of the Earth,
Which first appeared in 1864.
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies.
For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light.
For the joy of human love,
Brother,
Sister,
Parent,
Child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.
Words from 1864,
For the Beauty of the Earth.
Let's have a one minute pause so that we can simply relax and reflect on the beauty of this planet that is home to each and every one of us.
.
.
.
Welcome back.
Isn't it amazing how we can go through our days without noticing all the good things which we have going for us,
Without recognising all the beauty that surrounds us.
In our busyness we can rush from one place to another and from one task to another without being aware of the wonder of it all.
Never mind giving thanks for all this bounty.
Now there's no need for us to feel guilty about this.
This lack of awareness is understandable and we are not to be blamed.
After all we live in a busy world and our carelessness can be unintentional.
But it is a huge loss to ourselves if we fail to appreciate the beauty in which we exist.
If we fail to notice the benefits that inundate us day after day after day.
The opening words from that old hymn of 1864 remind us of some of these taken for granted benefits.
The sky above,
The earth below,
The people who love and care for us,
The beauty of each day,
Each morning and each evening.
The wonders of nature,
Trees and flowers,
Sun and moon and stars.
The variety of life with which we share this planet.
Not to mention the gift of our own senses,
Our sight,
Our hearing,
Our capacity to reason and understand.
The list goes on and on.
Now in all this abundance we are lucky to have people who remind us of the beauty that we sometimes fail to notice ourselves.
We have poets who celebrate beauty in their writings.
There is of course the obvious beauty of nature.
But beauty can also exist in the built environment which is where most of us live our lives these days.
William Wordsworth discovered beauty in the centre of London as he stood on Westminster Bridge over 200 years ago.
He took in the sight of the sleeping city with its ships,
Towers,
Domes,
Theatres and temples.
He described them as bright and glittering in the smokeless air as he saw the River Thames gliding along at its own pace.
His reaction,
Dull would he be of Saul who could pass by,
A sight so touching in its majesty.
And we too can be dull of Saul when we fail to open our eyes to beauty,
When we are oblivious to wonder and when we take the marvellous for granted and lose our sense of awe.
Let's pause now for one minute to recall some of the beautiful things with which we are surrounded.
.
.
Welcome back.
It's not that we mean to be neglectful of beauty or ungrateful for the benefits that surround us.
Our problem is just that the gifts of our world are so reliable,
So dependable,
So constant,
Never failing.
The daily benefits and blessings are so familiar,
Landing in front of us as reliably as night follows day.
And so we fail to notice.
It would be different if we had just arrived here yesterday.
If we had only arrived yesterday I'm sure we would pay more attention.
But many of us are fortunate enough to have been here a long time,
So long that we can fail to see the beauty around us.
The marvellous has become such an everyday thing that we can lose our sense of wonder and our sense of awe.
And what happens,
Sometimes we wake up in the morning and amazingly we are not astonished at the light of the new day.
We look out the window and if we think at all we take it for granted that what we see now is what we saw yesterday.
But if we stop to pay attention we notice that the view is never exactly the same.
Any day is not just another day.
Every day is new.
And there are subtle changes in light and temperature and weather.
Daily changes to be noticed in trees and vegetation.
Gradual changes in the lives and circumstances and feelings in the neighbours we see.
But to appreciate these changes we need to pay attention.
If we don't look for the subtle differences we don't see things as new.
And we can take for granted a new world that with our eyes open would give rise to feelings of wonder,
Awe,
Amazement and gratitude.
Joseph B Wirtland tells us,
The more often we see the things around us,
Even the beautiful and wonderful things,
The more they become invisible to us.
He says that is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world,
The flowers,
The trees,
The birds,
The clouds,
Even those we love.
Because we see things so often we see them less and less.
But imagine for a moment what it would be like if our sight had just been restored.
How would we look at things then?
Some of us had an experience of wonder on being released from lockdown during the height of the coronavirus crisis.
I remember being confined to my home for six weeks at one point and finally getting out for a walk.
I live in an estate of houses not far from Dublin city centre and I still remember how on my first walk in six weeks I could smell the vegetation.
I still remember the never before noticed scent of the hedges as I passed each garden.
I don't think I'll ever forget it.
Breathing in the scent and the freshness of that very ordinary vegetation.
And why?
Because it was being noticed as if for the first time.
Sometimes we have to lose and regain something before we really appreciate its beauty.
So the purpose of this meditation is to encourage us all to watch out for beauty.
Now watch out is hardly the correct word.
All we need to do is pay attention because beauty is surrounding us on all sides.
We don't have to watch out for it at all.
We just have to look.
And in all this we will find it better not to name things.
Let's try to see the beauty of flowers as simply the beautiful objects they are.
Try not to name them or tick them off as tulips or daffodils but simply appreciate their colours and their beauty as if we were looking at them for the first time.
In the same way let's not try to write off the great variety of trees as generic trees but to notice the difference in each and every one of them.
The different shades of green,
The varied shapes of leaves.
Trees moving through the seasons and changing with every passing day.
This poem was written by Alfred Joyce Kilmer in 1913.
It later became a song.
It's titled Trees.
I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree,
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast.
A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray.
A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair.
Upon whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me but only God can make a tree.
We will find so much happiness by paying attention to the natural world.
And we have to remember also to recognise the beauty in people.
The people we know and love and the people who know and love us.
They are so always present.
Their love and concern for us is never in doubt.
To the point where they too,
Just like the beauty of the earth,
Can be taken for granted.
My closing thought and prayer is that you may be filled with a sense of awe and wonder as you awake to the light of each new day.
May you have the eyes of a child enabling you to see things as if for the very first time.
May the closing light of each new day leave you with a feeling of gratitude for all you've received.
May you be blessed with happiness.
May you never take the wonder of your existence for granted.
Namaste.
